Then why did they charge a subscription in the first place to PC users? Just to piss them off before they eventually dropped it when they put the console version out? No, you're just making stuff up. The game is barren before 50 and even at 50 its light population. The game was failing and their taking a stab at another revenue stream. That's wuuuuuuuuuut.
And don't say they thought they were going to get Microsoft to give them an exemption to Live Gold that nobody else has gotten. That would just be stupid on their part.
They charged a sub becausethey could. They also thought they would be able ot charge a sub with the consoles. Whether they thought MS would drop the gold sub fee is irrelevent. I am sure they thought they had more leverage with MS than other companies due to them being an automatic hit witht eir games but it didnt happen.
So they went to another plan. I am sure they thought about releasing the Sony vrsion as a sub which IMO they should have. But tey chose instead to bank all the console money, write off the sub fees and just improve the game, get some DLCs made, get the store working and go to the Buy to play option, which was already their main goal anyway.
But NOT selling one version they have kept the console hype alive, they did lose some sub fees obviously but theyre now releasing a much better game, with a lot of hype and on both platforms at once.
In the end I am sure the game iwll be better off going forward going ths route. A lot of peopel will disagree wit that but I think ZoS learned some lessons this past year and those will help them make smarter decisions going forward.
The game is what it is a PvE quest central game with some attepmts at making PvP interesting and fun. But since you cant get the best gear or anything really important out of PvP other than wasting some time most people arent going to bother with it, just like they dont bother with it in other games. PvP is a waste of time for MMOs these days, more than enough of them have tried and failed to prove that PvP is a lost cause. Just make a solid MMO with an explorable world, some sand boxy features, some decent RP and fluff and people will eat it up.
The wing nuts and zealots that constantly shout these games are failing because of the lack of PvP just dont get it, had these games not had PvP at all and focused on the things most people want they would have been better off.
The irony is most of these next big thing games are all claiming to be PvP focused, I suspect they will change drastically between now and release and if they dont they will just crash and burn like every other game has the past decade. Because I have played them all and the PvP crowd is the same 100 guys who like to grief and gank people who just run around from game to game until they get bored. None of them ever stay anywhere. Thats why developers or beggers doing crowd funding are ill advised to keep pandering to that type of layer. Because theyre the worst of the worst of the MMO community. They demand too much and are the first to abandon a game they were white kinghting to the death (right up until it was released) and then are the first to bad mouth and bash it because it didnt deliver what they thought it would. ESO is just another example of their ilk.
They charged a sub becausethey could. They also thought they would be able ot charge a sub with the consoles. Whether they thought MS would drop the gold sub fee is irrelevent. I am sure they thought they had more leverage with MS than other companies due to them being an automatic hit witht eir games but it didnt happen.
So they went to another plan. I am sure they thought about releasing the Sony vrsion as a sub which IMO they should have. But tey chose instead to bank all the console money, write off the sub fees and just improve the game, get some DLCs made, get the store working and go to the Buy to play option, which was already their main goal anyway.
...snipped incoherent rambling...
Let's get a list of your sources for these 'facts' you present...
Nothing
Nobody
Not a thing
Nowhere
Not existent
Never was
Made up nonsense
Your Own Head
No, again you're talking out of your southernmost orifice. You have nothing to support your claim (that you are presenting as fact) and saying this was all planned and not just another company hoping subs would work and then scrambling for a fix.
Sorry, but with all the evidence of companies failing and then changing their business model, compared to your delusional lack of evidence for your conspiracy theory... I'll go with the obvious: Failed business model, scramble for new plan.
The End.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
PC gamers are clueless. Do any PC gamers realize that pc gaming numbers are a drop in the ocean compared to consoles? Putting this game as a buy to play title on Xbox live and ps4 will be huge if implemented properly. Currently the mmo market is stale on oc but the console market is ripe for the picking. The only real mmo on console was final fantasy and that was a turd. With the windows 10 announcements as well the future of gaming is xbox one
Sales wise - I would think there'd be an influx of profit due to console sales and PC gamers who were turned off by the subscription. Irrespective of subscription gamers believe, the subscription does discourage people.
Community, who can say? Did TSW go downhill? Does GW2 have a shit community? I would say no to either.
In my opinion, the only risk is getting too carried away with the cash shop. I myself am quite content to pay for things like mounts, content packs, and character services. The quest content has to be reasonable though. It cannot be like LOTRO where you buy the expansion then dump more cash to buy the raid and then exhaust your 401k to not be annoyed.
If they can keep away from p2w and annoyances like advertising the cash shop on every screen, then I'll continue to support them.
Lastly, do away with subs completely. If you want b2p, stick with that. There's no reason there should be some additional advantage because of that.
ESO has walked away from the pvp community....The pvp community has walked away from ESO. B2P changes nothing in this reguard. This part of my comments I know to be true.
As for the pve community......I think the sales of ESO for the console will be a shot in the arm.A BADLY NEEDED SHOT,because I'm guessing there will be many like me who have already or will unsub until there is compelling new content..
MY conjecture is we will see a DLC focused on Cyrodiil for the next attempt to inject revenue into the company..
As for me...I see no compelling reason to return as a subscriber.....AVA is not being supported....so I've returned again to DAOC.
------------------------------------------
I feel badly that the directors of ESO's development have chosen the path they have. I thought ESO was going to be in large part DAOC 2. .Matt Firror decided that was not to be,and so I'm wandering...returning to an old refuge.....until................
Good, go. Maybe it can be more like the rest of the Elder Scrolls series and focus on PVE and lore.
I have been playing ESO now for the last month and prior to that about 3 months of beta. I am a fan but currently my superfan status is still reserved for LOTRO. If they don't fix the group instancing issues and broken quests soon Ill return to LOTRO yet again.
Seeing as this entire post and subsequent replies are all based on conjecture with few if any supporting facts I am inclined to believe that Zenimax made this move as a direct consequence of their console launch. If the console market proves to be as large a boon to sales as implied I can see how they were motivated to make this concession to pc users.
I have no clue how many people are currently playing ESO. All I know is that during peak hours I am constantly re-instanced while in city hubs of every level. I am big alter and one of my biggest frustrations with many MMO's is that most of the population maxes out so quickly many of the lower level zones become ghost towns. This is absolutely not the case in ESO. There are so many people everywhere you end having to wait for named encounters to respawn or to find chests to lockpick. The guild I am in has more than 100 people on at any given time throughout the day and we are far from reaching our 500 user limit.
Outside of Final Fantasy XIV I have never seen or heard of a company retool their whole game in such a way as a response to player input. While the ESO launch did not meet the many lofty expectations, including my own, of so many fans, the effort that Zenimax has made is clearly being rewarded with more and more people enjoying the game, not less. There are none of the tell-tale signs of a failing game that I have seen in many other titles. Of course, ESO is still a young game and its most disheartening that they will be slowing content production, but for now from what I have seen, the B2P move is being made to improve upon their success and not as a way to mitigate losses.
On the whole gamers are such a fickle crowd especially the vocal ones on this site. Zenimax can't win for losing and any move they make will be met with skepticism. As someone enjoying their game I hope that the console launch is a huge success and only motivates them to produce more content. At least now I will have the option to unsub as dictated by my own needs and continue to enjoy the game.
Del Cabon A US Army ('Just Cause') Vet and MMORPG Native formerly of Trinsic, Norath and Dereth. Currently playing LOTRO.
They charged a sub becausethey could. They also thought they would be able ot charge a sub with the consoles. Whether they thought MS would drop the gold sub fee is irrelevent. I am sure they thought they had more leverage with MS than other companies due to them being an automatic hit witht eir games but it didnt happen.
So they went to another plan. I am sure they thought about releasing the Sony vrsion as a sub which IMO they should have. But tey chose instead to bank all the console money, write off the sub fees and just improve the game, get some DLCs made, get the store working and go to the Buy to play option, which was already their main goal anyway.
...snipped incoherent rambling...
Let's get a list of your sources for these 'facts' you present...
Nothing
Nobody
Not a thing
Nowhere
Not existent
Never was
Made up nonsense
Your Own Head
No, again you're talking out of your southernmost orifice. You have nothing to support your claim (that you are presenting as fact) and saying this was all planned and not just another company hoping subs would work and then scrambling for a fix.
Sorry, but with all the evidence of companies failing and then changing their business model, compared to your delusional lack of evidence for your conspiracy theory... I'll go with the obvious: Failed business model, scramble for new plan.
The End.
Irony for the loss...
You want to cite proof then in the same breath claim the game or business model was failing and thats why they switched.
But not to be unexpected on the forums.
There is no logical argument you can even make they were failing or worrying about failing. They have about half a billion dollars sitting there in console sales. (if they sell 10 million copies, half of what Skyrim sold, at 50 bux per) Even if they sell only 5 million console copies thats 250 million. But since its now B2P I suspect them to sell a lot of copies, and more than likely some people will buy multiple copies as well.
So in no universe or using any numbers made up or factual can you claim they were failing or losing money or worried about losing money or going broke and thats why they made the change.
Theyre business model has always been the same...buy to play sell millions of copies of the game. Since this was their first foray into the MMO world they decided to do what all MMOS do, charge a sub and then go buy to play. Ride subs as long as they could. Not sure what is so conspiracy about that, makes logical sense. Has Microsoft dropped the gold membership sub fee then I suspect they would have released both versions of the console and charged a sub and ridden it a lot longer. Call that what you will but companies looking to make money do what they can to make the most money. If they could sell the game for 50 bucks AND charge a sub (no matter how long or short that was) you dont think they would do that? rather than just selling the game for a one time fee?
There is also really no such thing as a failed business model since every version of monetization has an example somewhere that has worked and still works and makes a company money. Just because a game starts out as a sub game and then transitions to something else doesnt mean it failed, it just means it changed to something else. Considering the average life span of MMOs the past decade in terms of hype and massive populations the way ESO has gone about it is the most logical and most profitable they could have gone with (although they might have made more had they released on playstation and milked a few subs there). No company expect subs to last forever, simply because no company is making a game that is subworthy in the first place let alone subworthy AND has enough content or ability to generate content to continue to be subworthy. To think they do is naive.
Developers are doing exactly what players do, hack and slash tactics. release games that will have short life spans (like MMO players game hopping) and make some money start a new project.
Other than Lotro has there been a single MMO made that had a long term plan for development? At least a plan based on realistic expectations? I would say no. ZOS at least has a plan that can be mapped, whether it works or not remains to be seen. I suspect it will but generally the technology starts to get dated before the plan is fulfilled. Another reason why these companies arent looking for a long haul type game. Because in a lot of cases by the time they develop and release a game it is a generation or two behind current tech already. So that ust shortens the window people are willing to play it. Because thats one of the reasons why people want something new. How many times have we seen people say 'I wish they would revamp xxxx with better graphics and better optimization'? Too many.
But they converted because they had to survive and they were completely honest with the players from day one. It's different than ESO.
Zenimax treated their biggest backers like second-class players and proved that the team cannot be trusted.
Now lets see who keeps playing for 4-5 months by picking pocketswhile the shop is the only thing regularly updated.
And do you seriously think that after that period updates are going to drop like rain?
Even TSW and GW2, both having great B2P models, could not afford updating regularly. In both games, you still run the same end-game PvE-wise as in launch.
And thinking the above would happen to ESO is being optimistic.
I hope I'm wrong, but what I see in the future for ESO on PC is nothing but failure and disappointment.
Yes, this is why I've unsubbed for the first time since early access. I did let my sub lapse for a couple of days once, but this time I just felt like I didn't want to do business with ZOS because I didn't like being treated (dishonestly) like a paying beta tester. I paid and continued to play because I believed (more like hoped, I guess) that my issues with the game would be addressed.
There are a lot of great things about ESO and the game has a lot of potential. If I were having a lot of fun with the game, I might be able to overlook my displeasure with ZOS. But being treated in a shoddy manner as a customer and playing out of a sense of wanting to support the company for what potential I saw in the game, just don't go together for me.
My main reason for playing ESO was the pvp in Cyrodiil. But for me there are problems with stability, the way AvA works, buff servers, class balance, and faction balance. None of these look like they are going to be addressed any time soon.
So I'm done. It's b2p so I can always check back if I feel like it, but I just don't feel motivated any more, and I haven't since the b2p announcement.
Edit: I understand that ZOS is trying to deal with class balance in 1.6, to be fair. But I'm not confident that they can pull it off. I realize that not all classes are equal, nor would I want them to be. I also know that skilled and exceptional players can do well with any class. But when almost all of the top pve players and most pvp players run DKs, it's ridiculous. Just changing OP classes doesn't mean balance. But to be fair on that point, the verdict is still out on 1.6.
Edit 2: And I agree, Satyros. I never had a problem with GW2 because we knew from launch what the business model was. And I can play the game and have fun without the gem store. I do buy gems though because I'm too lazy to grind for gold. That works for me with the kind of game GW2 is. I mainly like to pvp whenever I feel like it in 5 v 5.
If ESO had something like that, it would help me with my pvp itch when the map is locked up by one faction (a huge zerg that responds to any small scale pvp group with overwhelming numbers) who has pushed the other two factions to their gates and taken all the scrolls. I don't want to participate in that if the two opposing factions to the one superfaction have just given up. This often happens during the NA night shift.
And TSW was fine, too. They have a great item shop. I don't regret my lifetime sub, even though I no longer play. It's still on my computer, though. I go back once in a while, but I'm not into endgame gear grinding and pve. Main reason I don't play TSW is because the pvp is not that good -- it's really a pve game.
Guild Wars 2 has an amazing comunity, and is b2p...i think you are talking about f2p games...but anyway, i think this wont hurt the comunity, if anything, it will bring more people to the game...more people who is willing to pay for a game but not a sub.
I think the thing that is bothering everyone the most isn't necessarily the conversion itself. It's the fact that they said it would remain a sub based mmorpg, period. I never say things like this, but it's really hard not to feel that we were all just beta testing and financing the console version of the game. I guess it would have been fine if they hadn't just flat-out lied about converting. I'm just guessing when they said it will remain a sub mmorpg they meant "for now..." and that's just really lame of them. I know that things change, but the whole situation just doesn't feel right. But I adore the game and even though I feel it should stay sub-based, I will stick with it for now.
Originally posted by LootHorder If not for consoles ESO would never had went to B2P cause they dont need to. And wudnt need to for many years IMO.
Did they tell you that?
Thought so
Seeing as how many people you see running around on PC I find that statement plausible.
As there are only two servers if the number of people you see is all there are then the game is in deep, deep trouble.
Two servers but there are many copies of the same zones that players are in. The zone you are playing in is just one of many copies. Every time I group up I have to travel to the same copy as the leader. So the players you see arent just what there is.
They charged a sub becausethey could. They also thought they would be able ot charge a sub with the consoles. Whether they thought MS would drop the gold sub fee is irrelevent. I am sure they thought they had more leverage with MS than other companies due to them being an automatic hit witht eir games but it didnt happen.
So they went to another plan. I am sure they thought about releasing the Sony vrsion as a sub which IMO they should have. But tey chose instead to bank all the console money, write off the sub fees and just improve the game, get some DLCs made, get the store working and go to the Buy to play option, which was already their main goal anyway.
...snipped incoherent rambling...
Let's get a list of your sources for these 'facts' you present...
Nothing
Nobody
Not a thing
Nowhere
Not existent
Never was
Made up nonsense
Your Own Head
No, again you're talking out of your southernmost orifice. You have nothing to support your claim (that you are presenting as fact) and saying this was all planned and not just another company hoping subs would work and then scrambling for a fix.
Sorry, but with all the evidence of companies failing and then changing their business model, compared to your delusional lack of evidence for your conspiracy theory... I'll go with the obvious: Failed business model, scramble for new plan.
The End.
Irony for the loss...
You want to cite proof then in the same breath claim the game or business model was failing and thats why they switched.
That's because my claim is borne out by historical perspective. MANY companies have tried to run the subs business model, MANY have failed, MANY have switched. When it is default behavior it does not need proof. Just like if I said a bullet to the brain might kill someone would not require proof, it has happened so many times it is accepted as truth. Your argument is against proven behavior, you are claiming that its NOT the bullet to the head that kills but cosmic energy from space that is attracted by the speed of the bullet and THAT would require proof to dispute the multitude of evidence that says no, it really is the bullet causing the death, just like It REALLY IS that they were losing money.
But not to be unexpected on the forums.
Nor is your left field made up conspiracy theory BS. You're just too emotionally invested in a game to see the obvious. They planned to be the first company in the 13 year history of XBOX live to convince Microsoft to allow them to avoid the subscription fees for their one game, and they based their entire business model around it? Not bloody likely.
It's the same old, same old... Subs tried, subs failed, try something else.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Comments
They charged a sub becausethey could. They also thought they would be able ot charge a sub with the consoles. Whether they thought MS would drop the gold sub fee is irrelevent. I am sure they thought they had more leverage with MS than other companies due to them being an automatic hit witht eir games but it didnt happen.
So they went to another plan. I am sure they thought about releasing the Sony vrsion as a sub which IMO they should have. But tey chose instead to bank all the console money, write off the sub fees and just improve the game, get some DLCs made, get the store working and go to the Buy to play option, which was already their main goal anyway.
But NOT selling one version they have kept the console hype alive, they did lose some sub fees obviously but theyre now releasing a much better game, with a lot of hype and on both platforms at once.
In the end I am sure the game iwll be better off going forward going ths route. A lot of peopel will disagree wit that but I think ZoS learned some lessons this past year and those will help them make smarter decisions going forward.
The game is what it is a PvE quest central game with some attepmts at making PvP interesting and fun. But since you cant get the best gear or anything really important out of PvP other than wasting some time most people arent going to bother with it, just like they dont bother with it in other games. PvP is a waste of time for MMOs these days, more than enough of them have tried and failed to prove that PvP is a lost cause. Just make a solid MMO with an explorable world, some sand boxy features, some decent RP and fluff and people will eat it up.
The wing nuts and zealots that constantly shout these games are failing because of the lack of PvP just dont get it, had these games not had PvP at all and focused on the things most people want they would have been better off.
The irony is most of these next big thing games are all claiming to be PvP focused, I suspect they will change drastically between now and release and if they dont they will just crash and burn like every other game has the past decade. Because I have played them all and the PvP crowd is the same 100 guys who like to grief and gank people who just run around from game to game until they get bored. None of them ever stay anywhere. Thats why developers or beggers doing crowd funding are ill advised to keep pandering to that type of layer. Because theyre the worst of the worst of the MMO community. They demand too much and are the first to abandon a game they were white kinghting to the death (right up until it was released) and then are the first to bad mouth and bash it because it didnt deliver what they thought it would. ESO is just another example of their ilk.
Let's get a list of your sources for these 'facts' you present...
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
@Columnist
Define hurt.
Sales wise - I would think there'd be an influx of profit due to console sales and PC gamers who were turned off by the subscription. Irrespective of subscription gamers believe, the subscription does discourage people.
Community, who can say? Did TSW go downhill? Does GW2 have a shit community? I would say no to either.
In my opinion, the only risk is getting too carried away with the cash shop. I myself am quite content to pay for things like mounts, content packs, and character services. The quest content has to be reasonable though. It cannot be like LOTRO where you buy the expansion then dump more cash to buy the raid and then exhaust your 401k to not be annoyed.
If they can keep away from p2w and annoyances like advertising the cash shop on every screen, then I'll continue to support them.
Lastly, do away with subs completely. If you want b2p, stick with that. There's no reason there should be some additional advantage because of that.
Good, go. Maybe it can be more like the rest of the Elder Scrolls series and focus on PVE and lore.
I have been playing ESO now for the last month and prior to that about 3 months of beta. I am a fan but currently my superfan status is still reserved for LOTRO. If they don't fix the group instancing issues and broken quests soon Ill return to LOTRO yet again.
Seeing as this entire post and subsequent replies are all based on conjecture with few if any supporting facts I am inclined to believe that Zenimax made this move as a direct consequence of their console launch. If the console market proves to be as large a boon to sales as implied I can see how they were motivated to make this concession to pc users.
I have no clue how many people are currently playing ESO. All I know is that during peak hours I am constantly re-instanced while in city hubs of every level. I am big alter and one of my biggest frustrations with many MMO's is that most of the population maxes out so quickly many of the lower level zones become ghost towns. This is absolutely not the case in ESO. There are so many people everywhere you end having to wait for named encounters to respawn or to find chests to lockpick. The guild I am in has more than 100 people on at any given time throughout the day and we are far from reaching our 500 user limit.
Outside of Final Fantasy XIV I have never seen or heard of a company retool their whole game in such a way as a response to player input. While the ESO launch did not meet the many lofty expectations, including my own, of so many fans, the effort that Zenimax has made is clearly being rewarded with more and more people enjoying the game, not less. There are none of the tell-tale signs of a failing game that I have seen in many other titles. Of course, ESO is still a young game and its most disheartening that they will be slowing content production, but for now from what I have seen, the B2P move is being made to improve upon their success and not as a way to mitigate losses.
On the whole gamers are such a fickle crowd especially the vocal ones on this site. Zenimax can't win for losing and any move they make will be met with skepticism. As someone enjoying their game I hope that the console launch is a huge success and only motivates them to produce more content. At least now I will have the option to unsub as dictated by my own needs and continue to enjoy the game.
Del Cabon
A US Army ('Just Cause') Vet and MMORPG Native formerly of Trinsic, Norath and Dereth. Currently playing LOTRO.
Irony for the loss...
You want to cite proof then in the same breath claim the game or business model was failing and thats why they switched.
But not to be unexpected on the forums.
There is no logical argument you can even make they were failing or worrying about failing. They have about half a billion dollars sitting there in console sales. (if they sell 10 million copies, half of what Skyrim sold, at 50 bux per) Even if they sell only 5 million console copies thats 250 million. But since its now B2P I suspect them to sell a lot of copies, and more than likely some people will buy multiple copies as well.
So in no universe or using any numbers made up or factual can you claim they were failing or losing money or worried about losing money or going broke and thats why they made the change.
Theyre business model has always been the same...buy to play sell millions of copies of the game. Since this was their first foray into the MMO world they decided to do what all MMOS do, charge a sub and then go buy to play. Ride subs as long as they could. Not sure what is so conspiracy about that, makes logical sense. Has Microsoft dropped the gold membership sub fee then I suspect they would have released both versions of the console and charged a sub and ridden it a lot longer. Call that what you will but companies looking to make money do what they can to make the most money. If they could sell the game for 50 bucks AND charge a sub (no matter how long or short that was) you dont think they would do that? rather than just selling the game for a one time fee?
There is also really no such thing as a failed business model since every version of monetization has an example somewhere that has worked and still works and makes a company money. Just because a game starts out as a sub game and then transitions to something else doesnt mean it failed, it just means it changed to something else. Considering the average life span of MMOs the past decade in terms of hype and massive populations the way ESO has gone about it is the most logical and most profitable they could have gone with (although they might have made more had they released on playstation and milked a few subs there). No company expect subs to last forever, simply because no company is making a game that is subworthy in the first place let alone subworthy AND has enough content or ability to generate content to continue to be subworthy. To think they do is naive.
Developers are doing exactly what players do, hack and slash tactics. release games that will have short life spans (like MMO players game hopping) and make some money start a new project.
Other than Lotro has there been a single MMO made that had a long term plan for development? At least a plan based on realistic expectations? I would say no. ZOS at least has a plan that can be mapped, whether it works or not remains to be seen. I suspect it will but generally the technology starts to get dated before the plan is fulfilled. Another reason why these companies arent looking for a long haul type game. Because in a lot of cases by the time they develop and release a game it is a generation or two behind current tech already. So that ust shortens the window people are willing to play it. Because thats one of the reasons why people want something new. How many times have we seen people say 'I wish they would revamp xxxx with better graphics and better optimization'? Too many.
Yes, this is why I've unsubbed for the first time since early access. I did let my sub lapse for a couple of days once, but this time I just felt like I didn't want to do business with ZOS because I didn't like being treated (dishonestly) like a paying beta tester. I paid and continued to play because I believed (more like hoped, I guess) that my issues with the game would be addressed.
There are a lot of great things about ESO and the game has a lot of potential. If I were having a lot of fun with the game, I might be able to overlook my displeasure with ZOS. But being treated in a shoddy manner as a customer and playing out of a sense of wanting to support the company for what potential I saw in the game, just don't go together for me.
My main reason for playing ESO was the pvp in Cyrodiil. But for me there are problems with stability, the way AvA works, buff servers, class balance, and faction balance. None of these look like they are going to be addressed any time soon.
So I'm done. It's b2p so I can always check back if I feel like it, but I just don't feel motivated any more, and I haven't since the b2p announcement.
Edit: I understand that ZOS is trying to deal with class balance in 1.6, to be fair. But I'm not confident that they can pull it off. I realize that not all classes are equal, nor would I want them to be. I also know that skilled and exceptional players can do well with any class. But when almost all of the top pve players and most pvp players run DKs, it's ridiculous. Just changing OP classes doesn't mean balance. But to be fair on that point, the verdict is still out on 1.6.
Edit 2: And I agree, Satyros. I never had a problem with GW2 because we knew from launch what the business model was. And I can play the game and have fun without the gem store. I do buy gems though because I'm too lazy to grind for gold. That works for me with the kind of game GW2 is. I mainly like to pvp whenever I feel like it in 5 v 5.
If ESO had something like that, it would help me with my pvp itch when the map is locked up by one faction (a huge zerg that responds to any small scale pvp group with overwhelming numbers) who has pushed the other two factions to their gates and taken all the scrolls. I don't want to participate in that if the two opposing factions to the one superfaction have just given up. This often happens during the NA night shift.
And TSW was fine, too. They have a great item shop. I don't regret my lifetime sub, even though I no longer play. It's still on my computer, though. I go back once in a while, but I'm not into endgame gear grinding and pve. Main reason I don't play TSW is because the pvp is not that good -- it's really a pve game.
Two servers but there are many copies of the same zones that players are in. The zone you are playing in is just one of many copies. Every time I group up I have to travel to the same copy as the leader. So the players you see arent just what there is.
That's because my claim is borne out by historical perspective. MANY companies have tried to run the subs business model, MANY have failed, MANY have switched. When it is default behavior it does not need proof. Just like if I said a bullet to the brain might kill someone would not require proof, it has happened so many times it is accepted as truth. Your argument is against proven behavior, you are claiming that its NOT the bullet to the head that kills but cosmic energy from space that is attracted by the speed of the bullet and THAT would require proof to dispute the multitude of evidence that says no, it really is the bullet causing the death, just like It REALLY IS that they were losing money.
Nor is your left field made up conspiracy theory BS. You're just too emotionally invested in a game to see the obvious. They planned to be the first company in the 13 year history of XBOX live to convince Microsoft to allow them to avoid the subscription fees for their one game, and they based their entire business model around it? Not bloody likely.
It's the same old, same old... Subs tried, subs failed, try something else.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.